


Interruptions

by potentiality_26



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Harry Lives, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 07:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6043525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Just when Eggsy let himself think that he might get through this without being asked any awkward questions, Harry said- very casually- “Am I right in supposing that your being here instead of George means that you chose to come here directly instead of simply telling him that he’d forgotten he had plans with me?  And you came here very directly at that- ten minutes, Eggsy?”  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“It was good exercise.”  Eggsy lifted his menu to hide his face- and his blush- from Harry.  “And I thought about it, but nah.  I ain’t giving George that kind of help, am I?”</i>
</p>
<p>Eggsy really hates Harry’s candidate for Tristan.  He feels it’s justified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interruptions

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea quite a while ago, when I saw an imagine-your-OTP style prompt where character A gets stood up and character B pretends to have been their date (I haven’t been able to track down the actual post since then), and immediately after that also saw some speculation about how Eggsy would probably feel about Harry’s next candidate, but I only recently actually got it off the ground.
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

The restaurant was nice without being too nice- a relaxed bistro sort of place, enough people there that it seemed to be doing good business but not terribly crowded, upscale but not so posh that it made Eggsy uncomfortable. Since becoming a Kingsman he had been to his share of places that did- he had taken his mother to a few, even, but with his fine suit and his new income he still caught himself thinking that he might get asked to leave at any moment.

The waiter nearest the entrance caught Eggsy’s eye as he hovered by the door. “Can I help you?”

“Uh, reservation for Hart?” Eggsy said. “For 12:30?”

It was almost 1:00, but the waiter only looked surprised for a fraction of a second before he said, “Of course. Right this way,” and Eggsy followed him into the restaurant itself.

Eggsy could have found his way without help, frankly. He saw businessmen and women having lunch meetings, some groups of friends getting a bite together- but mostly Eggsy saw couples, leaning close to kiss or flirting furiously, and then there was Harry at the table in the far corner alone. He had his back to the wall, as was his preference, and he looked heart-stoppingly handsome in his dove grey suit. He was bent over his tablet and clearly had been for some time- Harry’s hair was starting pull free from the severe style he always insisted on gelling it into, a single dark curl falling across his forehead.

A few people who didn’t have the same self-control as that first waiter whispered to each other when they saw where Eggsy was headed. Assuming that Harry himself had been running late- usually a safe bet- he would still have been waiting for a very long time. The half-finished glass at Harry’s elbow bore that out; they had probably all concluded that Harry had gotten stood up.

Eggsy conjured a smile and said, “Sorry I’m _so_ late,” in what he typically thought of as his Galahad voice.

As Eggsy sat down, Harry’s eyes flicked over him. Harry set his tablet aside, registering even less surprise than anyone else. “It’s quite all right.” Harry pitched his voice low and leaned toward Eggsy across the table: “Since it isn’t you I was here to meet.”

“Yeah, I know, I just… I saw George ten minutes ago and he looked pretty… you know, busy. So. Uh. I figured he wasn’t coming. And I was thinking maybe _we_ could just have lunch together.”

Harry was quiet for a heartbeat, and then he said, “That sounds lovely.” He took a sip of his drink and watched Eggsy curiously over the lip as he picked up his menu. Just when Eggsy let himself think that he might get through this without being asked any awkward questions, Harry said- very casually- “Am I right in supposing that your being here instead of George means that you chose to come here directly instead of simply telling him that he’d forgotten he had plans with me? And you came here _very_ directly at that. Ten minutes, Eggsy?”

“It was good exercise.” Eggsy lifted his menu to hide his face- and his blush- from Harry. “And I thought about it, but nah. I ain’t giving George that kind of help, am I?”

Harry looked amused. “Would you call it help?” he asked. “After all, as I recall you did perfectly well in the trials with almost no private instruction.”

Eggsy shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked hard at his menu. As if, if Harry _hadn’t_ been in a coma for most of the time Eggsy was a candidate, he would have ever failed to meet Harry when they had made plans.    

But of course, Eggsy didn’t like to have _any_ comparison drawn between himself and George. It felt awful no matter how he thought about it.

George was Harry’s candidate for Tristan. He was roughly Eggsy’s age, which was the extent of their similarities. George was Cambridge educated, his hobbies were fencing and being filthy fucking rich, and judging from the secondhand stories Eggsy had heard about his mum and his other mum his upbringing had been lovely if somewhat unconventional as far as the old guard at Kingsman were concerned.

Eggsy was aware that he was probably always going to feel a little bit uncomfortable about any candidate of Harry’s, and that when his own candidate- Jamal’s sister Miriam- had reported during their first conversation once she’d agreed not to quit- _that girl is dead and it’s nothing but a teachable moment to them, Eggsy, what the_ fuck- that George was actually a really nice guy, Eggsy was always going to be a little disappointed not to have a good excuse to hate him.

But once Eggsy figured out that George was _more_ than Harry’s candidate, he hadn’t needed an excuse anymore, it had just happened.

It was standard practice for sponsors to meet up with their candidates- sometimes away from HQ, sometimes not- to give them various lessons, not that Eggsy had gotten many before Harry went and wound up in a coma, but- for all Harry was being casual about Eggsy disrupting it- this one was clearly a date. Eggsy’s meetings with his proposal tended to include an out-of-the-way corner of the base and a couple cartons of takeaway, not that he wasn’t trying to pass on as much wisdom as the rules allowed. He wasn’t too worried about her, was the thing. She was fucking fierce, and _her_ hobby was hacking, so if she failed the dog test and didn’t get the _you exploded the heads of dozens of world leaders in order to save everyone else so we’re pretty sure you understand about making hard choices_ free pass that Eggsy did she still had a good shot at getting a job in Merlin’s division afterwards.

So Eggsy had decided that if George couldn’t remember when he was supposed to be meeting with Harry there was no reason that Eggsy- and Miriam- couldn’t reap the benefits, and Eggsy would try not to be too bitter about the fact that Harry wasn’t even mad about George flaking out on him all the time. He just seemed fond.

But yeah- Eggsy totally hated that guy.

Fortunately, someone came to take their orders before Eggsy could get too lost in those thoughts and throttle a napkin- or worse, walk right out of the restaurant, find George, and throttle _him_. Of course, when Harry gave his order like he had memorized it already, Eggsy almost did anyway.

He stopped himself, though. He didn’t get Harry alone as often as he would like these days and he was determined to enjoy it. Eggsy leaned close to Harry once they were alone again and asked, “Did I hear right that someone in Merlin’s division runs a pool about which candidate gets dropped when?”

Harry’s eyes glittered. “Kingsmen will bet on anything, Eggsy. _Always_ assume you heard right. Honestly, I’m a little surprised you weren’t sure, under the circumstances.”

“Hey, no, this isn’t sabotage,” Eggsy protested, regretting it almost immediately since he wasn’t sure he could explain what it _was_. _If he doesn’t appreciate you he doesn’t deserve you_ felt right, but it wasn’t exactly keeping his not-strictly-platonic feelings for his mentor on the down low. “I just…”

Eggsy trailed off, and apparently Harry had picked up on some of what he was thinking anyway, because he said, “You do know how sorry I am, don’t you? That I wasn’t there for you more during your training?”

And oh, how Eggsy knew. Harry had come out of his second coma that year sorry about pretty much everything, including not being there for Eggsy more during his training and- of course- everything he had said during that fight they had before he left for Kentucky. Eggsy had never really been mad about not seeing more of Harry while he was a candidate- sure, he had felt cheated of more time with a man he was already starting to have a crush on, but it wasn’t exactly Harry’s fault that he had gotten hurt. And he had stopped being mad about their fight after the dog test about five seconds after Harry walked out the door- they both said shitty things that day, and Eggsy wouldn’t have said any of them if he hadn’t been so scared of losing Harry, and even then he had been pretty sure that Harry didn’t want to lose him either, even if he wasn’t falling in love like Eggsy was. As far as Eggsy was concerned, Harry had some new scars but he was alive and that was the only thing that mattered.

It wasn’t like Harry hadn’t made up for it since then. Eggsy may have gotten a seat at the round table by the grace of Merlin, but he was still at a pretty severe disadvantage when it came to some of the things that men like Harry- like _George_ \- had been doing all their lives, and Harry was always there when Eggsy needed his help, whether it was with which fork to grab first or how to tell one ridiculously expensive bottle of wine from another.

After all that, Eggsy would sound pretty fucking childish if he said he felt neglected just because Harry had a new candidate now, but George was different. Eggsy could never make up his mind if it made it worse or not, that he and George were about the same age. Sometimes Eggsy thought _if Harry could fall for a candidate why couldn’t it be me?_ and thought it definitely made it worse. Other times, he knew that it was just the icing on the cake. George might have been his age, but beyond that he was unlike Eggsy in every possible way. Eggsy couldn’t switch places with George, not without changing everything else about himself too, and he’d do a lot for Harry but not that. He just wasn’t someone Harry could feel that way about; he had to accept it and move on.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said belatedly. “I know. But it ain’t- well, it ain’t quite the same with you and him though, is it?”

Harry laughed quietly, eyes going soft. “No, I suppose not.”

Eggsy looked away sharply, glad when the waiter brought them their lunches so he didn’t have to keep looking at the expression on Harry’s face, all warm and… loving. Miriam was a good judge of character, and if she said George was a good enough guy, Eggsy believed her. But _is not a terrible person_ and _deserves Harry Hart_ were two entirely different things. And what if George did become Tristan? He and Harry were already unbearable, with Harry’s fond looks and shoulder claps Eggsy would kill for and George’s in-jokes and the way he waggled his eyebrows when he mentioned that Harry was taking him to the shooting range, and Harry was at least making an effort to keep things professional and not shout _I’m fucking my candidate_ from the rooftops. What if he stopped? It was bad enough most of the time, but George could always be depended on to pull shit like this, making plans with Harry and then not following through. It messed with Eggsy’s mind so damn much.

“Are you all right?” Harry asked, eyes on Eggsy rather than his food.  

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Eggsy insisted, and if he was Harry he wouldn’t be convinced.

Sure enough, Harry chased the pasta that he had ordered around his plate for a while without actually taking a bite, and said, “You don’t like George very much, do you?”

“I bet he’s a good guy and all but…” Eggsy found he couldn’t lie, not to Harry and not like this. “I guess I don’t. And I wonder why you-”

“You think I should rein him in a bit more.”

And obviously Harry meant that with regard to George being a somewhat careless trainee and not at all in the sexual sense that Eggsy abruptly imagined with a horrible mixture of misery and arousal. “Yeah,” Eggsy managed, coughing and taking a drink of water to cover it. “I guess.”

“To be honest, I wouldn’t be entirely sorry if George didn’t make Tristan.” Harry looked thoughtful, warming to his theme: “I promised I’d make him my candidate a long time ago- he was going to be my proposal for Lancelot before I met you, in point of fact- and I’m keeping my word. But he’s so much like his father, and the Kingsman that he grew up wanting to be a part of- despite the best efforts of his mother and her partner, I might add- simply doesn’t exist anymore. We need more people like you and your friend Miriam, more fresh blood as it were.”

“You- uh- knew George’s dad?” Eggsy asked, hopefully not too plaintively- because there went his hope that Harry had never been able to look at _him_ like that because of his own father.

Harry nodded, finally starting on his meal and giving his answer between bites, either oblivious to Eggsy’s reaction or simply ignoring it. “I should think so, he was my brother.”

“What,” Eggsy said.

Harry paused, putting his fork back down. He looked wary, like he could tell that Eggsy’s feelings on the subject were stronger than they ought to be but had no idea why. “He was Lancelot before James Spencer. I’ll admit that’s not widely known, but it wouldn’t have been too difficult for you to find out. Frankly, I thought our… hmm… connection was relatively obvious.” Harry went quiet, and then he opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally asked, “Did you think we had a different kind of relationship?”

Eggsy’s mouth was very dry. He knew it was his turn to say something, but he was desperately trying to figure out how he could have been so wrong when it had seemed so… as Harry said, _obvious_. He supposed the warm looks, the fact that Harry was more tactile with George than anyone else, and that little extra _something_ he had always detected between the two of them could be explained if they were family- but it didn’t explain the way George, at least, had always emphasized all the time he spent with Harry in such an unavoidably romantic way. Unless-

Harry seemed to work it out the moment Eggsy did. “I believe my nephew was playing a joke on you.” A deep line cut its way down Harry’s forehead and he didn’t look like he thought it was very funny at all. “Why is another question.”

Not for Eggsy. George was many annoying things, but he was also observant, that was one of the first things Miriam had noticed about him. And he had figured out what Harry had missed all this time- that Eggsy had feelings for Harry that went far beyond those he was expected to have for a mentor. “Think it was to make me jealous.”

It was only when Harry froze in the middle of fussing with his napkin and _stared_ that Eggsy realized he had actually said it out loud. “Was that… likely?” Harry asked hesitantly.

Eggsy could have kicked himself for letting those words come out of his mouth, but it was too late now, and like with everything else, once Eggsy was in he supposed he might as well go all in. So he took a breath and said: “Of course it fucking was.”

Harry hesitated again. “If it’s to do with my closeness to him as a candidate…”

“Harry, you gotta know it ain’t that. I’m not- I mean, I don’t- I mean- oh, fuck it.” Eggsy leaned across the table, fingers on the nape of Harry’s neck, and kissed him. Harry’s lips were soft and pliant under Eggsy’s, and he kept the kiss short. “Okay?” he asked, drawing back a little.

“Okay,” Harry agreed.

Eggsy was close enough to count the lines around Harry’s eyes- and the stricken look on Harry’s face wasn’t fading, so Eggsy sat back down, his hand coming to rest heavily on the table. Eggsy’s fingers curled into fists as he prayed that he hadn’t just ruined one of the most important relationships of his life.

“Eggsy.” Harry reached out and took Eggsy’s hand. “If I asked you… to go on a date… with me…”

_Oh, thank fuck._ “ _Yes_ , Harry,” Eggsy said, dizzy with relief and _hope_. He curled his fingers around Harry’s longer ones. “I’d say yes.”

Harry’s smile was slow but undeniably happy. “Well, then. I suppose you have something to thank George for after all.”

Eggsy groaned. “What are the chances he’s gonna be a prat about this?”

“About this? Incredibly high.” Harry’s face went soft. “When I didn’t know if I would live or die, I made myself a lot of promises- including that I would tell you how I felt about you. But then you visited me in the hospital and you were so… full of light. And I thought, _there’s no way he would want to tie himself to me_. So I decided it would be better to be your friend than risk it all in a bid for something more. George took one look at you and told me I was wrong. I had no idea this was how he’d set out to prove it.”

Eggsy couldn’t speak for a second, honestly a little choked up to think that that was how Harry saw him, how Harry had seen him all the time that he had been kicking himself for being so fucking gone on Harry. He thought he and Harry were pretty smart, but they had both been so very stupid about this, hadn’t they?

Harry squeezed Eggsy’s hand, this incredibly sweet shy smile still on his face.

Eggsy started on his lunch, beyond overjoyed that things had come out like this. An hour ago he had thought it was hopeless and now… “I guess I do have something to thank him for, then,” he said, lips tugging helplessly upward into a grin. “But my candidate is still gonna beat him.”    

Harry laughed out loud.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


End file.
